"Against Shameless and Systematic Calumny": Strategies of Domination and Resistance and Their Impact on the Bodies of the Poor in Nineteenth-Century Ireland.
Item Type Article
Authors Geber, Jonny;O'Donnabhain, Barra
DOI 10.1007/s41636-019-00219-2
Journal Historical archaeology
Rights © The Author(s) 2020.
Download date 30/09/2021 08:51:15
Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10147/629427
Find this and similar works at - http://www.lenus.ie/hse Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-019-00219-2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
“Against Shameless and Systematic Calumny”:Strategies of Domination and Resistance and Their Impact on the Bodies of the Poor in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Jonny Geber & Barra O’Donnabhain
Accepted: 10 January 2018 /Published online: 14 January 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Mid-Victorian British characterizations of población echaban la culpa a su raza y “carácter moral” Ireland and much of its population blamed race and por la pobreza generalizada en la isla. Los pobres “moral character” for the widespread poverty on the irlandeses fueron retratados como una “raza aparte”, island. The Irish poor were portrayed as a “race apart” cuyas fallas inherentes fueron al menos en parte culpa- whose inherent failings were at least partly to blame for bles de la mortalidad que sufrieron durante la Gran the mortality they suffered during the Great Famine of Hambruna de 1845–1852. Las excavaciones recientes 1845–1852. Recent excavations at Kilkenny workhouse en la casa de trabajo de Kilkenny y la prisión de and Spike Island convict prison have produced skeletal convictos de Spike Island han producido ensamblajes assemblages from this critical period. These collections esqueléticos de este período crítico. Estas colecciones have enabled bioarchaeological analysis of parameters han permitido el análisis bioarqueológico de los mentioned by the Victorians as indicative of the distinc- parámetros mencionados por los victorianos como tiveness of the Irish poor: stature, interpersonal violence, indicativos del carácter distintivo de los pobres and tobacco use. Bioarchaeological data indicate that irlandeses: estatura, violencia interpersonal y consumo the differences between Irish and British populations in de tabaco. Los datos bioarqueológicos indican que las stature and risk of violence were exaggerated. Such diferencias entre las poblaciones irlandesas y británicas characterizations, we argue, were part of a strategy of en áreas de estatura y riesgo de violencia fueron “Othering” that served to legitimize colonial domina- exageradas. Tales caracterizaciones, argumentamos, tion. This exertion of power did not go uncontested, as fueron parte de una estrategia de “Otredad” que sirvió the pattern of tobacco use may be indicative of forms of para legitimar la dominación colonial. Este ejercicio de passive resistance. poder no se realizaba sin oposición, ya que el patrón de consumo de tabaco puede ser indicativo de formas de Extracto Las caracterizaciones británicas a mediados resistencia pasiva. de la época victoriana de Irlanda y gran parte de su Résumé Les descriptions de l’Irlande et de la plupart de sa population par la société Britannique du milieu de l’ère * J. Geber ( ) victorienne, blâmaient la race et le « caractère moral » pour School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of ’ Edinburgh, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot expliquer la pauvreté généralisée sur l île. Les Irlandais Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK pauvres étaient décrits comme une « race à part », dont les e-mail: [email protected] faiblesses inhérentes étaient à tout le moins et en partie la ’ raison de la mortalité les ayant frappés durant la Grande B. O Donnabhain – Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, Cork T12 famine de 1845 1852. Les récentes fouilles CY82, Ireland archéologiques à l’hospice des pauvres de Kilkenny et Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 161 dans la prison de Spike Island ont mis au jour des poverty has been a feature of European colonialism in assemblages ostéologiques de cette période critique. the modern era. While most definitions of colonial Ces collections ont permis une analyse bioarchéologique enterprises place an emphasis on economic and des paramètres mentionnés par les Victoriens comme political relationships, usually in the context of the indicatifs du caractère distinctif de l’Irlandais pauvre: settlement of a group of people in a new location, stature, violence interpersonnelle et consommation de Orser also noted how the operation of colonialism can tabac. Les données bioarchéologiques indiquent que les be considered at multiple levels. In the 1950s, for différences entre les populations irlandaise et britannique example, Fanon (1952) wrote about the psychological étaient exagérées quant aux traits liés à la stature et au impact of colonialism on subjugated populations, while, risque de violence. Ces caractérisations faisaient partie more recently, Stoler (2002) has considered the role of selon nous d’une stratégie d’« Altérisation » servant à the intimate in the negotiation and maintenance of co- légitimer la domination coloniale. L’exercice de ce lonial relationships. These perspectives place bodies, pouvoir n’a pas manqué d’être contesté, comme both settler and indigenous, at the center of colonial l’indiquent les usages de consommation du tabac qui discourse. This study uses bodies, in the form of archae- ont pu représenter une forme de résistance passive. ological skeletal remains, to explore expressions of lower-class identity in 19th-century Ireland in light of Keywords bioarchaeology. colonialism . identity. common perceptions of the “Irish race” and “national prison . workhouse character” held by middle- and upper-class Victorian society in Britain that played an important role in the relationship between the two islands. When the great lord passes the wise peasant bows Modern Ireland has been shaped by its relationship deeply and silently farts. with Britain. The experience of imperial control has —Ethiopian proverb (Scott 1990) been a dominant factor in the production of culture in the former, including contemporary identities and nar- ratives of the past. In political, social, and demographic terms, modern Ireland has been shaped by the drastic Introduction changes that took place in the 19th century. Perhaps the greatest of these was the loss of nearly 50% of the Whether or not Ireland can be viewed as a colony has population of the island in the 70 years between 1841 been the matter of debate among historians and 1911. Today, Ireland is the only country in Europe (McDonough 2005;Howe2008). The question defies in which the modern population is significantly lower a simple answer, in part, because of the fact that colo- than it was in the early 1800s. The 19th century had nialism has taken many different forms over time and begun with the integration of the island into the United provoked diverse reactions around the world. The form Kingdom, which reached the apogee of its imperial and of colonialism that developed with the rise of capitalism economic power later in the century. After the Act of resulted from the ideology of imperialism, which has Union of 1801, there was ongoing resistance to the new been defined as “the extension and expansion of trade constitutional arrangements as well as to other sociopo- and commerce under the protection of political, legal litical realities, and the relationship between the two and military controls” (Childs and Williams 1997:227). islands was often fraught. At a political level, the West- In the attempt to control the indigenous inhabitants of an minster government’s responses were dominated by the occupied area, unequal relations of power were usually use of force, along with the suspension of rights enjoyed constructed between colonizer and colonized. This in- by those living elsewhere in the United Kingdom, equality was often legitimized by narratives of racial through the passing of legislation known as the Coer- distinction that emphasized the supposed inherent fail- cion Acts. Farrell (1986) calculated that 105 such pieces ings of the colonized and a “natural order” that was of legislation were passed in Westminster between 1801 hierarchical. This, in turn, resulted in an elision of race and 1921. The unequal relationship between Britain and and poverty that was understood as justifying colonial Ireland and the repressive approach to the governance of enterprises rather than being their product. Orser (2011) the latter was legitimized through the use of racialized has argued that this connection between race and narratives of difference that implied that the native Irish 162 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 were incapable of ruling themselves. This is well illus- they lived determined their lives, as well as the manner trated in the following 1849 quotation from English in which they were confined and treated after death. historian Henry White (1812–1880): Through the analysis of their skeletons, it is possible to gain valuable insight into the living conditions of these Thus we see how the United Kingdom is divided people and to view their lives from a perspective that is between two totally distinct races, the one of not provided by historical sources (Geber 2014). Gothic and the other of Celtic origin. Undoubtedly everything great that has been accomplished for several hundred years in this country has been Ireland in the Nineteenth Century: Poverty, Famine, — done by the people of Gothic race by the Saxons and the Social Context of the Act of Union of England and Ireland, and the Lowlanders of Scotland. Literature, arts, commerce, industry, Though ruled indirectly from London since the Mid- civilisation, have all been the work of their hands. dle Ages, Ireland only became a constituent part of the We must not, however, infer that the Celts are a United Kingdom with the passing of the Act of Union permanently inferior race. It would be fair to sup- pose that ... their position has been depressed by in 1801. The Irish parliament in Dublin, which had peculiar circumstances in their history, and to hope existed in some form since the end of the 13th century that at some future day they may rise to the level of (Lydon 1997), was abolished. Ireland was thereafter their neighbours. (White 1849:77) governed directly from Westminster. The background to the union was complex, and the political rationale White, who was educated at the universities of for constitutional unity between Ireland and Britain Cambridge and Heidelberg, expressed an attitude to- had arisen from periods of social unrest and a rising wards the Irish “Celts” that was consistent with the fear of a French invasion (Beckett 1981; Connolly attitudes held by much of the establishment in Victo- 2000). Economically, the union was supposed to mean rian England (Curtis 1968;Lebow1976; Lengel 2002; that Irish merchants gained greater access to a wider Monacelli 2010). At the time of White’s publication, market. In practice, the union did not prevent the the people of Ireland were suffering an immense sub- further geopolitical marginalization of Ireland sistence crisis that was later deemed among the worst (Larkin 2014). The island remained impoverished in human history (Ó Gráda 2007). The Great Irish and poorly developed compared to its eastern neigh- Famine, between 1845 and 1852, resulted in nearly bor. Unfavorable trade rules ensured that it lagged one million deaths: one-eighth of the total population behind in terms of the rates of industrialization and oftheisland(BoyleandÓGráda1986). The back- economic development (Geary 1995). Access to land ground, course, and outcome of this calamity and, in ownership was highly inequitable and strongly biased particular, the role of the British government, remain toward the often absentee Anglo-Irish ascendancy, controversial to this day (Whelan 2004). Most of this most of whom were descendants of 17th-century Prot- controversy lies in the complex historical relationship estant settlers from England, Henry White’s “Saxons between Ireland and England, which also determined of ... Ireland” (White 1849:77). Tenant farmers were social policies toward the poor and the marginalized in accorded much less favorable conditions than their 19th-century Ireland. British counterparts (Smith 1993). As a result, large This study uses bioarchaeological approaches to ex- landed estates in Ireland were often poorly managed plore Victorian characterizations of the bodies of Irish and little investment was made to develop the rural subjects. The study is based on the analysis of two economy. These factors, in combination with a popu- significant skeletal samples excavated in recent years: lation increase in part driven by the introduction of the the famine cemetery at the Kilkenny Union Workhouse, potato in the 17th century, resulted in the deterioration used between 1847 and 1851 (Geber 2015), and the of social conditions for the poorest cohort of Irish convict cemetery at Spike Island, county Cork, dating society in the centuries prior to the Great Famine. from ca. 1860 to 1883 (Barra O’Donnabhain 2019, pers. There are numerous accounts of the extreme levels of comm.) (Fig. 1). Both include interments that represent poverty endured by the poor in Ireland in the lead-up to the poorer cohorts of the Irish population during the the famine (Plumptre 1817;Stanley1833;Inglis1835; mid-Victorian era. The sociopolitical context in which Kohl 1844;Nicholson1847; de Tocqueville 1997;de Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 163
Fig. 1 Map of Ireland showing Kilkenny City, Spike Island, and the counties and other locations mentioned in this article. The province of Ulster is shaded in gray. (Map by Nick Hogan, 2017.)
Beaumont 2006). Continental European visitors were miserable hovels! ... Here an opulent manor house with perplexed as to how this could occur in one of Europe’s proud avenues, there stony land that only with effort wealthiest states. In the decades prior to German unifi- yields potatoes!” (Bourke 2011:179–180). Living con- cation, for example, German visitors to the United ditions of the poor were indeed notoriously bad. At the Kingdom looked to Britain, with its prosperity and time of the 1841 census, the worst grade of accommo- relatively liberal constitutional monarchy, as a possible dation (Class 4) was home for nearly half of all families role model. However, they were appalled by the ex- in Ireland (Census of Ireland Commission 1843:xiv–vi). tremes of wealth and poverty they encountered in Ire- This type of housing comprised a mud cabin consisting land. One such visitor, Baroness Magdalena von of only one room or, as was mainly the case in the towns Dobeneck (1808–1891) wrote in 1832: “What a differ- and cities, a larger overcrowded house inhabited by up ence there is between England and Ireland! What to five families. One early 19th-century account 164 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 described how the poor were constantly exposed to cold particular socioeconomic conditions that prevailed on and humid conditions, often with nothing more than a the island and made it especially vulnerable to the failure damp clay floor on which to sleep (Tighe 1802:480). An of a single crop. Irish account from 1843 stated that it was
Controlling the People: Perceptions of Race impossible not to mourn over the general aspect of and Class the cottages. The tent of the Red Indian and the hut of the Esquimaux, are constructed with a greater Throughout the 19th century, the Irish were increasingly degree of care and more attention to their rude caricatured in the British and American press as morally notions of comfort, than the cabin an Irish peasant and socially inferior. These caricatures were based on erects on the side of the road, or mountain. (S. Hall the conception of the Irish Celts as being fundamentally and A. Hall 1843:290) different from the English or American Anglo-Saxons (O’Donnabhain 2000;deNie2004). While this percep- Social class was also distinctly expressed in terms of tion of Irish inferiority was rooted in the idea of race, it diet and food access. From the mid-17th century on- also had a strong class dimension that was in keeping ward, the potato crop became, more or less, the only with broader perceptions in Victorian society of the poor crop on which the vast majority of the poorest members being “a race apart” (Stocking 1987;Orser2011). This of society subsisted (Feehan 2012). The potato thrived is evident when contemplating how the concept of Irish- in the Irish climate and was, together with milk that was ness was perceived within Ireland at the time. Finnegan also a staple of the poor, a relatively good source of (2014) has discussed how Abraham Hume (1814–1884) nutrition, vitamins, and calories (Crawford 1988). The and John McElheran (d. 1859) —Irish ethnologists from monoculture economy generally resulted in annual pe- upper-class backgrounds—attributed “racial” differenti- riods of food scarcity and even starvation at the begin- ations in Ireland to class and religion, rather than ances- ning of each summer, when the old crop had been try. The link between religion and social inferiority exhausted and before the new produce could be harvest- dated back to the Reformation and the subsequent re- ed (Sexton 2012). The social and other consequences of placement of the old elites by a new Protestant ruling this more or less annual occurrence of hunger and dep- class. In 1803, just shortly after the Act of Union, an rivation among the poorest of the population paled in anonymous former member of the Irish Parliament gave comparison to the catastrophe that resulted from the the following description of the “lowest class of the potato blight that first appeared in Europe in 1844. This Irish”: “They are certainly, for the most part, thievish, windblown disease of the potato crop originated in the lawless, dishonest and destitute of a sense of equity. New World and reached Ireland in August 1845, (The people of the greater part of the province of Ulster resulting in the notorious Great Irish Famine (An Gorta are not meant to be included in the whole of this cen- Mór in the Irish language), which lasted until the early sure.)” (C. & R. Baldwin 1803:48). The sectarian im- 1850s. The plant disease spread quickly, infesting potato plications of this statement would have been clear to any fields and destroying crops across all of Ireland in as contemporary reader, who would have known that the little as a month (Feehan 2012). The situation was greatest concentration of Protestants was in the province exacerbated by failed government policies that of Ulster. What the author of this quote defined as attempted to combat the natural disaster with laissez “lower class” is unclear, but he may have included faire and minimalist market-intervention policies. About anyone from the level of small tenant farmers and one million people are estimated to have died from tradesmen to cottiers, day laborers, servants, and, finally, starvation-induced conditions in Ireland between 1845 the destitute (Keenan 2000). Poverty was viewed as a and 1852 (Boyle and Ó Gráda 1986), while the long- moral failing on the part of the poor, and, in order to term impact included a hemorrhage of emigration from control this cohort of the population, moral reforms the island that was not reversed for over a century. The were proposed by politicians as part of broader social failure of the potato crop occurred across Europe in the reforms. late 1840s, but did not result in similar rates of mortality. This denigration of the population of Ireland in gen- The devastating impact in Ireland was due to the eral, and the Irish poor in particular, did not go Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 165 uncontested (Romani 2016). The idea that there were Ireland has had a predominant focus on the prehistoric inherent biological differences between the English and and medieval periods (O’Donnabhain and Murphy the Irish “races” was challenged at the time, although 2014). A primary reason for this is that the datasets for this was a minority opinion and one that was still argued much bioarchaeological research in Ireland during re- from an evolutionary perspective (Babington 1895). cent decades have derived from development-driven Most of the contestation came from within Ireland. An rescue archaeology. Excavations at postmedieval ceme- example of this is the 1899 publication by the Irish- teries are rare, as most of these are still in use. Despite language scholar and historian Edmund Hogan (1831– this, the significant scientific and historical value of 1917) entitled The Irish People: Their Height, Form, 19th-century graveyards in Ireland has been made evi- and Strength. It was a compilation of various positive dent in recent years, both through rescue and research and flattering accounts of the Irish that he produced in excavations. order to defend his own people “against shameless and In 2005, human remains were encountered during an systematic calumny.” He aimed to prove that they were archaeological evaluation of the grounds of the former not like “Hottentots” or the “veriest savages on the face workhouse in Kilkenny City. An archaeological exca- of the earth.” Nor were they “like baboons” or the vation was undertaken the following year and revealed savage caricatures in Punch,or“the lowest races of what is currently one of the largest archaeologically Australia” (Hogan 1899:11–12). The negative charac- investigated mass-burial grounds in the world. A total terizations of Africans and Australian aboriginals that of 63 neatly arranged burial pits containing the skeletal are implicit in Hogan’s work reveal the deeply en- remains of at least 970 individuals were exposed (Fig. grained nature of the hierarchical concept of race and 2). The dead had been interred in simple pine coffins the insidious way in which this perspective had been that had been stacked on top of each other, with an internalized, even by those who were themselves average of four to five layers per pit. More than half of portrayed as inferior. all those buried (53.8%) were children aged less than 15 Indeed, Hogan betrays how those so characterized years at the times of their deaths. Of those over the age found themselves trapped within the discourse of of 15 years at the time of death, 216 could be identified race as they struggled to affirm their own place as males and 200 as females (Geber 2015, 2016). While among the “civilized.” It is not surprising, then, that many of the skeletons were highly fragmented, the there were opinions expressed within Irish émigré trabecular and cortical bone was generally in a good communities in the U.S.A. before and during the state of preservation. American Civil War (1861–1865) that were anti-ab- Subsequent historical research has confirmed that olition, and that they even argued for the expansion these burials relate to a peak in mortality that occurred of slavery into the Northern states. Such calls were between August 1847 and March 1851, at the height of most likely driven by anxieties among the Irish the Great Famine. The Kilkenny workhouse was one of American community about their low social stand- 163 such institutions that were opened all over Ireland ing, which found expression in attempts to distance between 1841 and 1853 following the passing of the themselves from those perceived to be lower on the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838. The Poor Law was a social ladder (Osofsky 1975; Shannon 1989:54–56; response by the government in London to the dire social Ignatiev 1995;Kenny2003). conditions in Ireland. The reform was based on the Poor Law Amendment Act (Eyre and Spottiswoode 1899)for England and Wales that had been passed by the Whig Burials of the Poor and the Marginalized: government (1830–1834) four years prior to the exten- The Interments at the Kilkenny Union Workhouse sion of the system to Ireland. A fundamental aspect of and Spike Island Prison the Irish Poor Law Act was that state aid (in terms of food and accommodation) would only be provided on Research into the bioarchaeology of 19th-century Ire- the basis of utmost necessity and in exchange for phys- land is a relatively recent phenomenon. While historical ical labor in a workhouse. archaeology—termed “post-medieval archaeology” in The Irish workhouses were almost all constructed Ireland—has expanded significantly in recent decades following an identical design, comprising a massive (Horning et al. 2007), the study of human remains in H-shaped accommodation and infirmary block located 166 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 behind an administrative building and enclosed by 8 ft. approach to incarceration preferred the isolation of pris- high stone walls (Raftery 1995). Unions served as the oners in single cells, this was not possible on Spike administrative units of the Poor Law system. The Kil- Island, where convicts were held in overcrowded dor- kenny Union Workhouse, with capacity for 1,300 in- mitories for the first two decades of the prison’sopera- mates, was opened on 21 April 1842 (Fig. 3). On that tion. Initially planned to hold just a few hundred con- first day of admission, 30 applications were accepted victs, by 1850 the island housed over 2,300 men, mak- (Geber 2015). During the Great Famine, however, over ing it the largest prison in the United Kingdom, as it was 4,300 people were housed in the facility and in auxiliary then constituted. premises rented nearby, so that the institution became The overcrowded conditions contributed to a very grossly overcrowded, with mass deaths occurring indi- high mortality rate, peaking at 286 deaths (>12% of rectly as a result (Geber 2015, 2016). the inmates) in 1853. A royal commission established The male convict depot on Spike Island in Cork that year recommended reducing prisoner numbers on Harbor received its first prisoners in October 1847 and the island to below 1,000. This had a dramatic effect, operated for the following 36 years (McCarthy and and, from 1860 to 1883, prisoner deaths averaged at 6.3 O’Donnabhain 2016). The first prisoners found them- per annum. A total of just under 1,200 men are recorded selves in a large Napoleonic-era fortress that had been as having died in the prison between 1847 and 1883. left unfinished after the defeat of the French at Waterloo Over 80% of these deaths occurred between 1850 and in 1815 (Fig. 4). Using the fort as a prison served the 1854, and were interred in a cemetery on the east side of dual purpose of easing famine-related overcrowding in the island. Between 1860 and 1862, that cemetery was the county and city jails throughout the island of Ireland. buried under up to 6 m of fill during the final construc- It also provided an unpaid labor force to complete the tion phase of the fortifications. A new convict graveyard fortifications on Spike Island. While the early Victorian was established at the western end of the island and contains the remains of about 150 men. Excavations were carried out in this cemetery from 2013 to 2018 as part of the Spike Island Archaeological Project and revealed a regimented series of graves that were mostly of uniform depth and spacing. Twenty-six graves were excavated between 2014 and 2016, and, in all cases, the convicts were buried in coffins (Figs. 5, 6). The burials date from ca. 1860 to 1883 and postdate the Great
Fig. 2 An adult male skeleton (Burial No. DCCXLIV) in situ, from one of the mass burials at the Kilkenny Union Workhouse. He is estimated to have been between 36 and 45 years of age at the Fig. 3 Aerial photograph (ca. early 1960s) of the Kilkenny Union time of death. He was approximately 174 cm tall, and his dentition Workhouse. The mass burial ground was located in the northeast had clay-pipe facets on the anterior teeth. His remains showed no corner of the boundary wall, visible in the upper-left corner of the evidence of skeletal trauma. (Photo courtesy of Margaret Gowen photograph. (Photo courtesy of Karen Deegan and the Kilkenny & Co. Ltd., 2006.) County Library.) Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 167
Fig. 4 Aerial photograph of Spike Island, County Cork, viewed Fig. 5 One of the Spike Island convict burials (Burial No. C.318) from the northeast, showing the 19th-century fortifications that in situ. This was a younger adult male who was approximately were completed using convict labor. The original convict cemetery 174 cm in stature. He was a smoker and preferred to hold his pipe was buried ca. 1860 under the sloping glacis in the foreground,and on the right side of his mouth. He had incurred a broken nose at a second convict burial ground was then established at the south- some stage of his life. He was buried in a coffin, the outline of west side of the island, at the top of this image. (Photo courtesy of which was detectable at the time of excavation. (Photo by Stephen Con Brogan, National Monuments Service, 2013.) Bean, 2013.)
Recovering Identities: A Bioarchaeology of Social Famine and the period of highest mortality in the island Marginalization in Nineteenth-Century Ireland prison. However, it is likely that most, if not all, of the individuals whose skeletons were uncovered had lived A distinctive mode of dress, tobacco use, and a readi- through the famine, and some are likely to have ness for violence became part of the stereotype of the witnessed the gross overcrowding of the prison (Barra O’Donnabhain 2019, pers. comm.). For both the Kilkenny and Spike Island assem- blages,1 osteological analysis of the human remains was based on standard methodological praxis (Buikstra and Ubelaker 1994). Age at death was estimated from dental mineralization, tooth eruption, and epiphyseal fusion in subadults (Scheuer and Black 2000), and from morphological changes to the pubic symphyses and auricular surfaces of the os coxae, sternal end of the ribs (İşcan et al. 1984; Lovejoy et al. 1985; İşcan and Loth 1986; Brooks and Suchey 1990), and cranial suture obliteration (Meindl and Lovejoy 1985) in adults. Sex for adult individuals was estimated from cranial and pelvic morphological traits (Sjøvold 1988;Maysand Cox 2000). Living stature was estimated using equa- tions formulated by Trotter and Gleser (1952, 1958). Only adult individuals (>18 years) were considered for this study.
Fig. 6 An in situ, older adult male from one of the Spike Island convict burials (C.507). He was approximately 170 cm tall and a 1 The human remains from Kilkenny were reburied during a multide- smoker who preferred to hold his pipe on the right side of his nominational ceremony at the Famine Memorial Garden in Kilkenny mouth. He was buried in a coffin, the timbers of which survived. City in May 2010. The long-term fate of the Spike Island remains will There was no evidence of trauma in the skeleton, but the presence be decided by the National Museum of Ireland, which has statutory of periostitis on the pleural surface of three unsided rib fragments responsibility for the curation of all archaeological artifacts (including indicate that he suffered from some form of pulmonary disease, archaeological human remains) in the state. probably tuberculosis. (Photo by Barra O’Donnabhain, 2014.) 168 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183
Irish man. Edmund Hogan referenced these traits in his of economic exploitation, but also by competition and summary of the intentionally demeaning caricaturing of association with the coarse, dissolute, volatile, and the Irish in the British press: drunken Irish. It should be noted, however, there were also those of the opposing opinion who stated that Irish They took as their model the very lowest type of men and women immigrants were “efficient workmen” the Englishman, adorned him with a tattered coat, with “highly favourable” moral conduct (Cornewall kneebreeches, a battered hat, a clay pipe, a Lewis 1835;Nicholls1856:183). According to census shillelah [a wooden walking stick and a weapon, records, in 1841 there were 415,725 Irish-born people also spelled shillelagh, see below], and presented residing in England, Wales, and Scotland. Twenty years him as the typical native of Ireland, The Predom- later, and largely due to mass emigration during the inant Partner, of course, made endless fun of such Great Famine, this number had almost doubled, to a droll figure, and while devoting himself to the 805,717, which corresponded to 3.6% of the total pop- complacent survey of his own immaculative and ulation of Great Britain (MacRaild 2011:table 2.1). irreproachable person, prayed thus within himself: “O God, I give Thee thanks, that I am not as the “ ” Hirishman.” (Hogan 1899:7) Here We Find No Trace of Degraded Dwarfs :Irish Stature in the Nineteenth Century Hogan astutely noted that the manner in which the Irish poor were despised was mirrored in a lack of In December 1836, an anonymous writer published an respect for the poor across the United Kingdom, irre- article entitled “Attractions of Ireland” in the Dublin spective of nationality. Systematic and demeaning treat- University Magazine. The article described the condi- ment of the poor in England certainly occurred. One tion of Ireland and the Irish people, and was rhetorically notorious case was the Andover (Hampshire) work- anti-British in its tone. Despite this, the article contained house scandal in 1845 (Longmate 2003), where the negative stereotyping of the Irish poor, reflecting the inmates were denied their food rations and resorted to often conflicted and ambivalent nature of the identity eating garbage. Another infamous case was the filthy of the Anglo-Irish ruling class (Dublin University was a conditions and extreme neglect that workhouse inmates bastion of the elite). One of the writer’s main conten- in Huddersfield (West Yorkshire) had to endure during a tions was that the Plantation of Ulster, where Scottish typhus outbreak in 1848. A shocking report of the Protestants were settled in the 17th century at the ex- conditions, which were deemed to be worse than those pense of the local Roman Catholic population in Andover, was first published by the Leeds Mercury (Robinson 2000; Bardon 2011), had forced the “native newspaper (Leeds Mercury 1848), and it resulted in a Irish” from counties Armagh and Down to migrate nationwide disgust and outrage amongst the public westward to counties Mayo, Sligo, and Leitrim, where (Fowler 2008). Even Friedrich Engels (1845), a cham- they, through “the worst effects of hunger and igno- pion of the poor who was one of the first to highlight the rance,” had degenerated both physically and mentally. link between people’s material conditions and health, He wrote how the descendants of these displaced peo- wrote of the English urban working class as a race apart, ples were “a wide-mouthed, flat-nosed, low-browed, who were physically degenerate, robbed of all human- and hollow-eyed, rabble, poor in person and pitiable in ity, and reduced both morally and intellectually to near- intellect,” and that their faces “bear barbarism on their bestial condition. The impoverished Irish who had im- very front” (Dublin University Magazine 1836:667). migrated to England during this time would, neverthe- Furthermore, this degenerated people was described as less, still find themselves being perceived as socially “five feet two upon an average, pot-bellied, bow-legged, inferior to the “native poor.” There was concern at a abortively-featured” that “fright the sister island with government level that the “turbulent and irregular annual apparitions of Irish ugliness and Irish want” habits” of the Irish would negatively influence the (Dublin University Magazine 1836:669). Sixty-three morals of the poorer populace of Great Britain years later, Edmund Hogan took great offense at this (Cornewall Lewis 1835). Friedrich Engels (1845)was statement, and through the numerous accounts com- of a similar view in the 1840s, suggesting that the bined in his book (see above) he was able to affirm that, English urban proletariat had been reduced to their amongst the peasantry of Ireland, “[h]ere we find no degenerate state as a result of the dehumanizing effects trace of degraded dwarfs” (Hogan 1899:123). Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 169
Height as a physical characteristic of people and The estimated living stature of adult females at the “race” was of particular interest to 19th-century anthro- Kilkenny Union Workhouse averaged 158.2 cm, while pology, principally because of the perceived strategic the mean height of males was estimated at 171.4 cm advantage to the military of having tall, robust soldiers. (Geber 2015). At Spike Island, the average height of a Stature is still a measurement frequently discussed in sample (n=17) of the men interred in the burial ground anthropometric studies today, but now as a reflection of was estimated at 167.4 cm. The Kilkenny estimates are health and living conditions. It is habitually used by higher compared to anthropometrical data of Irish pop- economic historians and others as a proxy for assessing ulation samples in the 19th-century, while the Spike standards of living in human societies (Steckel 1995; Island estimates are similar to those reported means Carson 2005; Young et al. 2008). Disparities in height (Table 1). Anthropometric data that are available from between population groups are generally interpreted as the Spike Island prison archival records indicate that the reflections of sociocultural and socioeconomic divisions average stature of males incarcerated during 1849–1850 (Rosenbaum 1988). Floud, Wachter, and Gregory iden- was slightly less than that provided by skeletal esti- tified four main non-genetic factors determining terminal mates, however, a direct comparison between stature: nutritional status, social and geographical in- osteometric and anthropometric data is not possible equalities, urbanization and disease environment, and due to methodological issues.2 rising or falling real wages (Floud et al. 1990). Terminal To investigate whether there was a height discrepan- stature from skeletal remains is also frequently adopted as cy between Irish and English populations during the a measure of biocultural adaptations and health by 19th century, femoral lengths (as a proxy for stature) bioarchaeologists (A. Goodman and Martin 2002; from the Kilkenny Union Workhouse and Spike Island Mummertetal.2011; Vercellotti et al. 2011). However, samples were compared with 19th-century human skel- it has not been common in the discipline to explore links etal samples (n=263) from London (Wellcome between stature in assemblages and causative factors, Osteological Research Database 2016). The latter sam- such as those proposed by Floud et al. (1990), although ples derive from the lower social-status burial grounds there are some notable exceptions (Boldsen 1993; of St. Bride Lower on Farringdon Street and Crossbones Sellevold 1993; Vercellotti et al. 2011;Arcinietal.2014). in Southwark, and also Chelsea Old Church in Chelsea, In studies of the 19th century in other disciplines, which was used by the middle to upper social classes there has been a significant focus on secular changes (Table 2). as a result of social consequences, with average- Using a t-test to investigate dissimilarities, the com- height reductions following increasing levels of ur- parison failed to detect any significant differences in banization and industrialization (Baten and Murray bone lengths for either males (t=1.169, df=278, 2000; de Beer 2010). In the Irish context, the focus p=0.244) or females (t=-0.516, df=238, p=0.607). The has been on historical conscript anthropometric data variance between the Irish and London samples was gathered by the British military, which have indicated also surprisingly similar, as indicated from a Levene’s that Irish recruits were taller than their English coun- test for both males (F=0.001, p=0.974) and females terparts by an average of ½–1 in. (12.7–25.4 mm) (F=0.159, p=0.690). Neither was there any significant (Floud et al. 1990). Mokyr and Ó Gráda have difference in mean when comparing the femoral discussed this difference as a potential reflection of robusticity values (as a proxy for biomechanical load- the Irish reliance on a potato diet (Ó Gráda 1991; ing) between the Irish and English samples (males: t=- Mokyr and Ó Gráda 1994), which was relatively 0.433, df=256, p=0.665; females: t=0.634, df=238, nutritious (Crawford 1988) compared to the diet of p=0.527). the English working class, which was dominated by In 1870, the British anthropologist and ethnologist bread and tea (Wohl 1983). Considering the substan- John Beddoe (1826–1911) published the book Stature tial differences between Irish and English societies in both industrialization and urbanization, a disparity in adult statures between these two populations is a 2 The osteological determination of living stature from skeletal remains trend that might be expected. The bioarchaeological is based on regression equations, denoted from a reference sample, which give an estimate within varying degrees of error margins. It is, evidence, however, suggests that this may not have therefore, not recommended to assess the results from these on an equal been the case. basis as anthropometrically measured data. 170 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183
Table 1 Estimated and recorded statures of 19th-century, living Irish males
Sample N Height Data Height (x) Source
Kilkenny Union Workhouse (paupers), all ages, 1847–1851 186 Osteometric 171.4 cm Geber 2015 (67.5 in.) Spike Island Prison (convicts), all ages, ca.1860–1883 17 Osteometric 167.4 cm Barra O’Donnabhain 2019, (65.9 in.) pers. comm. East India Company (recruits), all ages, 1800–1809 432 Anthropometric 164.9 cm Mokyr and Ó Gráda 1994 (64.9 in.) East India Company (recruits), all ages, 1810–1814 1,350 Anthropometric 166.1 cm Mokyr and Ó Gráda 1994 (65.4 in.) New South Wales (convicts), all ages, 1817–1840 5,005 Anthropometric 167.7 cm Nicholas and Steckel 1991 (66.0 in.) Lower Canada (convicts), all ages, 1820s 809 Anthropometric 169.7 cm Morin et al. 2016 (66.8 in.) Kilmainham Prison (convicts), >23 years, 1840s 1,400 Anthropometric 168.4 cm ÓGráda1996 (66.3 in.) Clonmel Prison (convicts), 25–29 years, 1845–1849 521 Anthropometric 168.6 cm ÓGráda1996 (66.4 in.) Spike Island Prison (convicts), all ages, 1849–1850 529 Anthropometric 166.1 cm Barra O’Donnabhain 2019, (65.4 in) pers. comm. Perth General Prison, Scotland (convicts), 23–50 years, 1860s 110 Anthropometric 169.3 cm Beddoe 1870 (66.7 in.) British Army (recruits), 23–50 years, 1860s 1,517 Anthropometric 170.8 cm Beddoe 1870 (67.3 in.)
and Bulk of Man in the British Isles in which he There is no exclusive factor influencing terminal discussed variations in height and weight of males across human stature, but rather an intricate variety of causes the United Kingdom as it was then constituted. Beddoe and circumstances. This is apparent from the Irish evi- was a polygenist, and his work was highly influenced by dence of both osteometric and anthropometric data from the prevailing late 19th-century discourse of “race.” In the 19th century (for a critical discussion on the use and fact, he was one of the main proselytizers of this idea in interpretation of Irish anthropometric data, see Ó Gráda his time (Beddoe 1885). In a paper delivered in [1996]). The social changes that Ireland underwent dur- June 1870 at the Anthropological Society of London ing this period were substantial (Boyce 2005), and they entitled The Kelts of Ireland, Beddoe discussed how he were not linked only to the Act of Union in 1801 and the had developed an “Index of Nigrescence” from which he Great Famine. These changes also occurred as a result of concluded that the Irish were of mixed race (Morash reforms, such as the Poor Law Act of 1838 (see above); 1998). Despite his preoccupation with the “relations of the Disestablishment Act in 1869, which separated the stature to race,” Beddoe provided some interesting ob- established Anglican church (Church of Ireland) from servations on the influence of non-racial parameters the state (Beckett 1981:364–369); and the Land Acts of when he argued that variance in stature was influenced 1870–1903 that facilitated the transfer of land owner- by levels of urbanization, diet, and socioeconomic fac- shipfromlandlordtotenant(Solow1971; Beckett tors. One of Beddoe’s main conclusions was that Irish 1981:389–394). What is evident from the current data recruits were “almost equal in stature and fall somewhat is that, despite these social changes and the socioeco- below in weight” compared to English and Scottish nomic and cultural differences between the two socie- soldiers (Beddoe 1870:186–191). Considering that the ties, the Irish from these two assemblages were not majority of the measured Irish male recruits in his study impaired in stature compared to the English reference would have been born before or during the Great Fam- samples. ine, his conclusion is interesting when discussing the A study of stature and its relation to socioeconomic value of using stature as a proxy for health and living status in post-famine Ireland by Young et al. (2008) conditions in 19th-century populations. observed statistically significant relationships between Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 171
Table 2 Femur bone lengths (mm) from Irish and English skeletal samples
Sample Males Females
N Min. Max. Mean SD N Min. Max. Mean SD
Kilkenny Union Workhouse, 1847–1851 133 388.0 507.0 455.0 24.4 124 372.5 475.0 419.5 21.3 Spike Island Prison, ca. 1860–1883 17 410.0 502.0 445.5 19.2 –– –– –– –– –– London, England, 18th–19th centuries1 147 395.0 513.0 451.6 24.9 116 355.0 468.0 421.0 22.1
1 This sample comprises collated data from the following postmedieval cemeteries: St. Bride’s Lower (1770–1849), Chelsea Old Church (18th–19th centuries), and Crossbones (1800–1853) (Wellcome Osteological Research Database 2016). terminal height and occupation, education, and migra- 2016). These were usually prearranged occasions, often tion status. More surprisingly, however, the same study taking place in at large gatherings, such as markets and concluded that an increase in average stature of males fairs (Conley 1999). Faction fights were often based on was the greatest in the counties of Ireland that had been grounds of identity formed by the places of origin of the most affected by the famine. While Young and co- antagonists or were perceived as being due to long- workers interpreted this trend as a reflection of a relative lasting family feuds (the reasons for which sometimes increase in living standards due to diminishing compe- had long since been forgotten) (Conley 1999; tition for local resources following the substantial pop- O’hAodha 2008). Women would occasionally partici- ulation loss, it also further highlights the difficulties in pate in these fights also (O’Donnell 1975;Conley making assumptions based on stature if historical and 1995). cultural contexts are not taken into consideration Bioarchaeology tracks violence in past societies by (Relethford 1995). assessing the frequency and patterns of trauma, such as dislocations and healed fractures to bone (Lovell 1997; The Fighting Irish? Cultural Patterns of Violence Redfern 2017). Evidence of interpersonal violence is ubiq- uitous in the bioarchaeological record, and it is clear that A frequent theme in the stereotyping of the Irish during cultural practices contribute to determining the patterns of the 19th century was to ascribe drunkenness and vio- interpersonal violence in archaeological skeletal materials lence to that group. The term “the fighting Irish” has (P. Walker 2001;Novak2006, 2017;delaCova2010). been used since at least the 1830s (Hughes 2006:256). This was highlighted in Brickley and Smith’s(2006) study Violence, as a feature of the Irish and Irish culture, was of a skeletal sample from lower to upper social-class frequently depicted in xenophobic caricatures in the burials at St. Martin-in-the-Bull-Ring from Birmingham, press. This was seen in the British satirical magazine England, dating from the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries. Punch (de Nie 2004), as well as American papers, such In their study, violence-related injuries (VRIs), which were as Puck, Yankee Notions (Appel and Appel 1990), and identified from metacarpal, cranial vault, and maxillofacial the New York–based political magazine Harper’s Week- fractures, had an 11:1 male to female ratio that highlights a ly (Fig. 7). While modern sociological and psychologi- strong link between interpersonal violence and gender. cal studies tend to attribute high rates of violence within When comparing social class—as determined from burial communities primarily to socioeconomic factors (Hsieh contexts—there was no significant difference in VRI rates, and Pugh 1993; Fabio et al. 2011), there were also with the exception of nasal fractures, which were more cultural practices associated with the Irish in the 19th common in high-status individuals interred in crypts. century that could explain this perception. These includ- The Birmingham sample is contemporary with ed so-called faction fights, which were not uncommon the Kilkenny and Spike Island assemblages, and in rural Ireland during the pre-famine era. Faction fights thereby provides an opportunity to explore potential were a form of ritualized violence that was part of rural sociocultural differences in the patterns of violence folklife. They were often perceived as a form of sport or between mid-19th-century English and Irish popula- amusement, and were a means of easing social tensions, tions. Using the same parameters as those utilized even though fatalities could and did occur (O’Rourke by Brickley and Smith, both similarities and 172 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183
Fig. 7 The infamous illustration, The Day We Celebrate,by depicted the Irish in a clear, dehumanizing manner as violent and caricaturist and cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902), published brutal characters with subhuman features (Nast 1867). in the New York newspaper Harper’s Weekly on 6 April 1867, that
disparities are apparent between the English and the evidence from Kilkenny does imply that a gender Irish samples (Table 3). In both datasets, males were homology in relation to certain patterns of skeletal more likely to sustain VRIs, which suggests that, on trauma was very much in place in the early decades both islands, male activities and behaviors left them of the 19th century in Ireland. at greater risk of violence resulting in broken bones. In the Birmingham sample, 14 of the 16 cases However, the ratio of males to females is substan- (87.5%) with metacarpal fractures involved the first tially lower for the Kilkenny sample compared to metacarpal. In Kilkenny, the rate was 61.5% (8/13) for Birmingham, particularly in relation to cranial-vault the first metacarpal, followed by 23.1% (3/13) for the trauma. Overall, cranial-vault blunt-force trauma fifth metacarpal, 15.4% (2/13) for the second, and 7.7% was present in 6.3% (12/190) of the Kilkenny males (1/13) for the third and fourth metacarpals. At Spike and 5.1% (9/175) of the females, a difference which Island, two of the male inmates had healed fractures to was not statistically significant (χ2=0.231, df=1, the first metacarpal (2/3; 66.7%), while another had a p=0.631). This is an interesting observation, as it fracture of the fifth metacarpal (1/3; 33.3%). Brickley not only runs contrary to the commonly perceived and Smith (2006) interpreted the metacarpal-fracture pattern of violence in human skeletal samples distribution in the Birmingham sample as reflecting (Novak 2017), but perhaps also reveals aspects of boxing injuries that would have occurred from so- gender relations among the poor in mid-19th- called bareknuckle fights, which became increasingly century Ireland. Conley (1995) has discussed how common in England during the 19th century. If related women in late 19th-century rural Ireland clearly to interpersonal violence, the fact that there is a lower acted against the established social norms of the frequency of first metacarpal fractures in the Kilkenny ways they should behave by frequently resorting to sample would, in that case, suggest that physical assault violence to solve conflicts. While Conley (1995) using the fists was less common in this population group related this to the social trauma relating to having compared to their contemporaries in Birmingham. This experienced the famine, the bioarchaeological would not necessarily be a bioarchaeological indication Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 173
Table 3 Sex-distribution pattern of bone fractures in Kilkenny and Birmingham
Injury Kilkenny Union Workhouse St. Martin’s, Birmingham
N Sexed Individuals (M:F) M:F Ratio N Sexed Individuals (M:F) M:F Ratio
All fractures 77:44 1.6:1 75:23 3.7:1 Ribs 24:7 3.4:1 44:7 6.3:1 Metacarpals 13:0 13.0:0 15:1 15.0:1 Maxillofacial 5:1 5.0:1 6:1 6.0:1 Cranial 12:9 1.3:1 5:0 5.0:0 All VRIs 27:10 2.7:1 22:2 11.0:1 Excluding VRIs 50:34 1.5:1 53:22 2.4:1
that interpersonal violence was less common in Kilken- interpersonal violence. The possibility that some of the ny, but perhaps, rather, that the cultural expressions of lesions noted in Kilkenny could have been related to violence differed between the two societies. accidents occurring, for instance, during industrial or Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th agricultural labor, or even during sports, should not be century, stick fighting or bataireacht, with the use of a discounted. However, most fractures (17/26; 65.4%) shillelagh, was common in Ireland. Shillelaghs (from the were observed on the left of the skull vault (Table 4), Irish sail éille) had a more common use as walking sticks which suggests that an intentional blow from a right- and were traditionally made from a hardwood, such as oak handed aggressor is a likely cause for most of these or blackthorn. They had blunt pommels of varying shape injuries. The fractures varied in shape, from round in- that could be used to inflict damage (Hurley 2007). A dentations that would have been caused by a spherical shillelagh enabled combatants to both attack and defend item to linear and asymmetric depressions that would themselves quickly, with brute and effective force. While have been caused by straight-edged or irregularly stick fighting was not an unknown practice in England, it shaped objects. Stones, or the pommel “hitting” end of is believed to have decreased significantly by the early a shillelagh, which was made in various shapes and 19th century due to the increased popularity of boxing and forms (Hurley 2007), could easily have been the cause prizefighting during this period (P. Walker 1997;Wood of some of these. Evidence of blunt-force trauma to the 2004). Pierce Egan (1772–1849)—a British sportswriter cranial vault was noted in two of the convict burials and journalist of Irish descent—chauvinistically claimed from Spike Island (2/26; 7.7%). Both injuries were of (Egan 1830:13) that, due to their “national character,” the spherical form and were to the left frontal. Although the English would only resort to using fists during fights. The small sample size should be noted, this is a similar rate Dutch, however, would frequently resort to “the long to that noted in the males from Kilkenny, which is not knife,” while the French and the Germans, according to surprising, as the social background of both assem- Egan, would use stones and sticks to “gratify revenge!” blages is similar. Shillelaghs were the weapon of choice during faction When commenting in 1835 on the Irish “moral fights in Ireland, along with the throwing of stones character,” Lord John Russell, MP (1792–1878), (O’Rourke 2016). The frequent use of the shillelagh in stated in a debate in the House of Commons that fights throughout the 19th century in Ireland (Hurley in Ireland there “exists, as we unhappily know, a 2007) resulted in this particular style of fighting becoming strong propensity to violence and outrage, not mere- associated with Irish combatants and is a common theme ly among a few lawless and ill-regulated persons, in their representation (Fig. 7). but among all, or nearly all, classes of the commu- The possible use of shillelaghs or throwing of stones nity” (Russell 1870:402). Russell became prime in Kilkenny is evidenced from the frequency of cranial minister in 1846 and continued to serve as such blunt-force trauma (Fig. 8), which was relatively fre- throughout the Great Famine; he was created Earl quent in both males and females (see above). Brickley Russell for his efforts in 1861. This perception of and Smith (2006) attributed all cranial vault trauma to the Irish as an inherently violent and unruly people 174 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183
Fig. 8 Evidence of cranial blunt- force trauma in three adult individuals from the Kilkenny Union Workhouse mass burials: To the right, left parietal bones of an older adult female (a=Burial No. CDIV) and middle-adult female (b=Burial No. CXVII), and, on the right, a portion of the frontal bone of a middle-adult male (c=Burial No. CDXXV). (Photos by Jonny Geber, 2009.)
was undoubtedly a factor that contributed to the people” (Woodham-Smith 1962:156). Trevelyan mismanagement and poor judgment shown regard- (1807–1886) was in charge of organizing food aid ing the relief policies implemented by the British and famine relief in Ireland, and in 1848 he received government during the famine period. This recourse a knighthood from Queen Victoria (1819–1901) for to blaming the “character” of the Irish is also appar- his “services to Ireland” (Haines 2004). ent in a statement made by the assistant secretary of When contemplating the overall fracture patterns the treasury, Charles Trevelyan, who affirmed that observed in Kilkenny, Spike Island, and Birming- “the real evil with which we have to contend is not ham,andtakingintoaccounthowviolencemay the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of have been expressed differently on a cultural basis, the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the there is nothing to suggest from the
Table 4 Number of cranial fractures in adults from Spike Island and Kilkenny
Bone Spike Island Kilkenny Union Workhouse
Males Males Females
Left Right ? Left Right ? Left Right ?
Skull vault Occipital –– –– –– –– –– 2 –– –– –– Frontal 2 1 –– 32 231 2 Parietal –– –– –– 6 –– –– 3 –– –– Temporal –– –– –– 1 –– –– 1 –– –– Maxillofacial Nasal 2 –– –– 32 –– –– –– –– Zygomatic –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– Maxilla –– –– –– 11 –– –– –– –– Mandible –– –– –– –– –– –– –– 1 –– TOTAL4101454722 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 175 bioarchaeological evidence that, between these soci- Irish nationalist publication Duffy’s Hibernian Mag- eties, there would have been a substantially different azine in late 1861, that stated that, for the descrip- exposure to violence. Many historical narratives of tions of Ireland, “[c]aricature, not Truth, is required 19th-century Irish society have repeated the claim for the English market,” and that any “caricature of that it was indeed violent, based on the contempo- ‘Paddy’ would [not] be complete without the myth- raneous accounts of faction fights, riots, and rebel- ical cutty, either ... stuck through a slit in the brim, lions. However, it has also been argued that these or confined to the hat by a band” (Duffy’sHibernian accounts were markedly exaggerated (McMahon Magazine 1861:282). Later in the 19th century, as 2013:1–11). Like Trevelyan and Russell’s physicians became increasingly aware of the health rationalizations, such exaggeration served a political risks associated with tobacco consumption, it was purpose in that it paved the way for emergency argued that “if marriage were to be confined to the legislation and the suspension of rights guaranteed smokers, a physically inferior race of men and wom- elsewhere in the United Kingdom. After the Act of en would be begotten” (Oldberg and Helfman 1895), Union in 1801, increases in crime in Ireland were which gives further insight into how negative “ra- regularly reported during turbulent events, such as cial” attributes came to be assigned to the Irish the Tithe War of the early 1830s. This was a cam- during this time. paign of mostly nonviolent disobedience by the ma- Clay-pipe smoking was a common practice in jority Roman Catholic population against paying the 19th century (J. Goodman 1994), but in Ire- tithes to support the minority, but official, state land the habit had different cultural connotations church. Other turbulent events include the campaign than on the neighboring island of Britain and to repeal the Act of Union, the Great Famine, and elsewhere, which, in a way, explains how it even- the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, which was part tually became a stereotypical Irish attribute. The of the wave of pro-democracy revolutions across smoking of clay pipes was an important element in Europe that year. In addition to the repressive Coer- the Irish funerary tradition of the 18th and 19th cion Acts, London’s response included the develop- centuries (Mooney 1888; Ó Súilleabhaín 1969; ment of state-run prisons, such as that at Spike Butler 2016). These pipes—or dúidíní,asthey Island. The Irish penal system was reformed in the are called in Irish—would also sometimes be aftermath of the Great Famine, and the prison au- placed with the dead in the coffin, although no thorities claimed that the success of their innova- archaeological evidence of that practice was found tions could be seen in a gradual decline in criminal- at the Kilkenny Union Workhouse or at the Spike ity as the century progressed, as measured by falling Island burial grounds. The absence of such evi- conviction rates and prisoner numbers (Finnane dence is not surprising at Spike Island, as convicts 1997). Others writing at the time linked the decline in the prison population to the amelioration of con- ditions after the famine and the subsequent rapid demographic decline that was principally due to emigration (McCarthy and O’Donnabhain 2016). The population of the island fell from 8.17 million in 1841 to 4.39 million in 1911.
Pipe Smoking—Identity and Social Resistance
Descriptions of the laboring classes in Ireland in the 19th century often referred to the smoking of clay pipes (as the stems were prone to breaking, a clay pipe was known colloquially as a “cutty,” ageneric word for anything cut short), which eventually be- Fig. 9 The dentition belonging to a middle-adult male from one of the Kilkenny Union Workhouse mass burials, exhibiting a clay- came an essential part of caricatures of the Irish pipe facet (indicated by an arrow) as well as considerable evidence peasantry. This was highlighted in an article in the of dental disease. (Photo by Jonny Geber, 2009.) 176 Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 were not allowed access to tobacco. Smoking was smoked less than their English counterparts (Billings also forbidden in the workhouse, according to the 1875:209), but the opposite was clearly the case for the rules stated by the Irish Poor Law Commissioners poor. Indeed, this popularity of tobacco use among the (1849:appendix A, no. 3, article 20,31); however, poor may explain why the wealthy Irish eschewed the minute books from the Kilkenny Union reveal smoking, which may have been perceived as a badge of that this particular directive was not always poverty. During a speech on taxation in the House of followed. For instance, on 11 November 1848, a Commons on 26 March 1830, Lord Charles Edward male inmate by the name of Edmund Delaney Poulett Thompson, MP (1799–1841), stated that tobacco accidentally caused a fire to his coat and bed in consumption in Ireland was significantly higher than in the infirmary ward, and the Kilkenny Guardians England, and that tobacco, in fact, was “a prime necessity demanded that the smoking ban be strictly amongst the lower orders in that country” (Poulett Scrope enforced. This order was also a response to criti- 1844:345). This “prime necessity” was perhaps related to cism from the Poor Law inspectors, who on nu- the appetite-suppressive qualities of nicotine (Mineur merous occasions had complained about the evi- et al. 2011). When seen in the context of colonial dom- dence of smoking inside the workhouse (Kilkenny ination, however, the habit of pipe smoking in Ireland Union Board of Guardians 1848). during the 19th century can also be viewed as a political That smoking was a common habit in both groups is act relating to social and national identity. In this view, evidenced by the very high prevalence in adult denti- smoking was a form of resistance and could be viewed in tions of pipe smokers’ notches, the typically circular terms of a material expression of anticolonial discourse abrasions on the anterior teeth that are due to wear (Hartnett 2004). Not only did this take the shape of the caused by habitually clenching a pipe (Fig. 9). These habitofsmoking,but,also,inthelatterhalfofthe19th were generally observed between the canines and first century, the pipe itself. These would often be adorned premolars on the left side of the mouth, which would with nationalist imagery, such as shamrocks, harps, busts have enabled smokers to free their right hands and, of political figures, or direct political mantras, such as therefore, suggest that people were often smoking while “Erin go Bragh” (an Anglicization of the Irish Éirinn go engaged in other tasks. In Kilkenny, 61% (101/165) of brách,meaning“Ireland forever”), “Home Rule” (advo- all males and 29% (41/142) of all females had such cating self-governance for Ireland), or “Repeal” (referring facets (Geber 2015). Among the exclusively male con- to demands for the repeal of the Act of Union). Through victs at Spike Island, the percentage with pipe-smoking this direct symbolism adorning the pipes themselves, a notches was 77.3% (17/22). As smoking was forbidden smoker could take an obvious political stance without in the prison and workhouse (although this was evident- having to resort to language that could be deemed sedi- ly not always adhered to, as noted above), this represents tious. These decorated pipes have been found outside patterns of activity that predate institutionalization. Ireland, for instance in archaeological excavations of Irish These rates are substantially higher than in contempo- tenement areas in the Five Points neighborhood in Lower rary skeletal samples from England. For example, at Manhattan, New York City (Fox 2015:87–91). For those Bow Baptist Church in London (1816–1837), only 2% who left Ireland in the 19th century, the continuous use of of the males (2/86) had facets (Henderson et al. 2013), the clay pipe in their country of adoption could have been and at St. Marylebone (1767–1859), also in London, a means of expressing their national identity (Cook 1997; only 1% (1/105) of the males did (Miles et al. 2008). At Reckner and Brighton 1999). a third London burial ground, St. Mary and St. Michael (1843–1854), nearly 40% (55/139) of all males, but only Discussion 3% (3/102) of females had facets (D. Walker and Henderson 2010). This particular cemetery, located at In this article, we have taken the view that, despite the Whitechapel in the East End, was used by poorer Irish fact that Ireland was constitutionally integrated into the immigrants, and further implies that pipe smoking was United Kingdom from 1801, other aspects of the British/ an integral part of life for many people with an Irish Irish relationship, such as the almost annual Coercion identity during the 19th century. Acts with the associated suspension of rights, as well as A late 19th-century American commentator was of the the presence of a social elite that was perceived to be opinion that upper middle-class and elite Irish men distinct in terms of religion and ethnicity, indicate that Hist Arch (2020) 54:160–183 177 the association between the two islands was one of like in Ireland for those among the poor who colonial master and subject. In common with British found themselves institutionalized in the middle colonialism in other world areas, the unequal relation- of the 19th century. ship between the two islands and unequal social rela- tions within Ireland were legitimized and sustained by narratives of racial distinctiveness and inferiority that Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Shannon A. were often articulated in terms of moral failure due to Novak for the invitation to contribute to this thematic collec- inherent flaws. These narratives of difference included tion, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful myths about the stature of the Irish, their supposed comments and suggestions. The Spike Island excavations were carried out under consent (C501) by the Minister for innate violence, and their use of tobacco, parameters Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, with financial support from that are amenable to bioarchaeological investigation. the Institute for Field Research and support in kind from Cork These are also factors that were well-documented by County Council and University College Cork. The Kilkenny contemporary observers, but the historical record in this Union Workhouse mass burials were excavated by Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd. in 2006 under the direction of archaeolo- regard is problematic, created as it was by those in gist Brenda O’Meara by license (05E0435) from the National positions of power and authority. Museum of Ireland, and funded by MacDonagh Junction Bioarchaeology offers an alternative means of Developments. Funding for the bioarchaeological research exploring the lives and deaths of the poorest cohorts of the Kilkenny mass burials has been generously provided by Johan and Jakob Söderberg’s Foundation (Johan och of Victorian society, those who were silenced and Jakob Söderbergs Stiftelse), the Wellcome Trust (Grant Ref: marginalized. Through the conflation of race with 096435/Z/11/Z), the Irish Research Council (GOIPD/2013/ poverty, the emphasis on the distinctiveness of the 36), the School of Natural and Built Environment (formerly Irish and their inherent failings was a tool used in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology) of Queen’s University Belfast, and Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd. their political and economic subjugation. It also We would also like to thank all field staff and students who served to exonerate successive governments and participated in the archaeological excavations at Spike Island their roles in the systematic pauperization of most and in Kilkenny, and the Irish Antiquities Division of the of the population of the island. Bioarchaeological National Museum of Ireland for its continuous support of the research of both these sites. investigation of two aspects of this mythical distinc- tiveness, stature and interpersonal violence, showed that the differences, in respect of these metrics, Compliance with ethical standards between the Irish and their English peers were overstated. This was done for a strategic purpose, Conflict of Interest Statement On behalf of all the authors, the to facilitate and justify the domination of the island’s corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest. population. This colonial domination was resisted explicitly by various political and civic organiza- tions throughout the 19th century. We suggest that Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http:// the bioarchaeological evidence for tobacco con- creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestrict- sumption relates to an activity that was a means of ed use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided expressing a particular identity and, in doing so, was you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a form of passive resistance, both intentionally and provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. in a non-discursive manner. Smoking has often been a subversive activity. 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